Do It! Marketing Blog: Marketing for Smart People™

Had a terrific marketing mentor call with a new client who has made MILES of progress in the short time since we started working together.

During our last conversation, I praised his action-orientation, and the great progress he’s made in recent weeks. He acknowledged how much better he felt about his marketing, positioning, and programs.

But then he asked me a powerful question - “David, if I’ve made this much progress, why am I not making more money?”

I gave him my initial responses (it's still early in the game, not enough prospecting activity, no consistent sales process) but since then I’ve developed many more reasons that speakers, authors, coaches, and consultants aren’t making the money that they know they could and SHOULD be making.

Here are the top 17 reasons YOU might not be making the money you want and deserve. Do a quick self-check with the ones that resonate the most with YOU:

You’re great at delivering your product or service but you’re terrible at marketing and sales

You’re not getting the right kind of marketing or sales help in time – or at all!

You’re not delegating or hiring part-time help to take care of the “intelligent gruntwork.”

You don’t have a business plan/goal/vision/destination in mind, including failure to plan for failure!

You’re not connecting with prospects on their most relevant, urgent, and expensive issues

You don’t have a defined sales process and find yourself winging it almost every time

Your proactive outbound prospecting plan consists of sitting by the phone waiting for it to ring. (Not good!)

You’re forgetting that we live in the Attention Economy - first you must earn your prospects’ attention and only THEN will you have a chance to earn their money

You’re relying too much on one marketing channel (email, social media, direct mail, networking) and your prospects are starting to see you as an annoying pest, not a welcome guest

You’re not adding enough tangible sources of excellence to your marketing mix - in other words, you’re failing to create marketing materials that are too good to throw away!

You underestimate the amount of time and/or money it will take to grow your business successfully. Remember, not all things are going to work the first time. Or the tenth. Plan for experimentation, testing, and thousands of small adjustments along the way

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p.s. Want to make sure your business is focused on what matters most to maximize your influence AND income?

Download your copy of the Do It! Marketing Manifesto for free right here.

I'm getting really REALLY tired of these so-called gurus and coaches who are supposedly teaching people how to "make millions as a [fill in the blank - speaker, author, infomarketer, coach, etc]" yet they have never earned a $5k+ speaking fee, they've never sold more than 1000 books, they've never sold more than a few thousands dollars in infoproducts, and they've never coached more than a few dozen people.

Here's the deal, people - ASK your next coach, guru, teacher, or mentor the following questions based on the subject you're enrolling to learn.

For example...

1. Speaker marketing coach:

How many times a year do you speak FOR MONEY?

At what fee?

Who are five of your most recent paid speaking clients?

2. Book marketing coach:

Is your book self-published or with a major publisher?

How many books have you sold?

If you claim "bestseller" status - what lists and for how long were you on the list?

Where is your book TODAY in amazon sales rank (less than 25,000 is good)

3. Group coaching/online course creation guru:

How many group coaching programs or courses have you run?

Since when have you been filling your own groups?

What's your average enrollment?

At what price point?

Can you show me the sales page for three of your recent programs?

4. Infoproduct coach:

How many infoproducts do you currently sell?

What's your monthly sales volume on your top 2-3 products?

Can you show me the sales pages for several of your products?

5. Private Coaching guru:

How many private coaching clients do YOU currently work with?

What are your coaching packages and fees?

Do you charge by the hour? (It's a BIG red flag if they say yes!)

What percentage of your coaching business is repeat and referral?

What's the average amount of time and money that clients spend with you?

Then check out their recommendations on Linkedin and their client testimonials on their website (how specific are they? how many? how credible? Full attribution with person's name, company, position, etc?)

There are a lot of people out there who LOOK like they have it going on - pitching their "Million Dollar" this and "Million Dollar" that...

Sad to say, a LOT of it is smoke and mirrors. Motivation, inspiration, pretty websites, great photos of smiling, jubilant bootcamp or retreat attendees, a big social media footprint, great looking videos...

But scratch the surface and the gold glitter starts to flake off in big chunks as you realize you've just been taken for a ride by a very pretty or handsome con artist and suddenly, you're out a few thousand dollars (or a lot more) with nothing to show for it except that empty feeling in the pit of your stomach that you're not any closer to achieving your goals for your business, your bank account, or your lifestyle.

Don't follow the herd - you're not a lemming or a sheep.

Find the people who are the REAL DEAL, who only preach what they themselves practice, invest wisely, and choose carefully.

That is all. Rant ends here.

And next time - we'll tackle the rant of the CLIENT who does not do. (That rant might be even juicier than this one, don't you agree?)

6 Reasons Why I Spent $1000 When I Could've Bought a $20 Book on Amazon Instead - and Why YOU Might Want to Do the Same...

Some of my friends and clients are surprised that as the marketing coach and "marketing guru," I still invest in other people's courses, programs, and seminars.

Well, stop being surprised.

Truth is, all the top experts in any field are continually learning, developing, and studying the brilliance of others.

I've had folks take MY courses who were incredibly successful, 7-figure+ consultants, speakers, and entrepreneurs.

Why? Not because I knew "more" than they did - but I did have some specialized knowledge, strategies, expertise and experience that they lacked. As top-performing (and top-earning) experts, they recognized the gap - and wanted to fill it. Thus, they signed up to work with me, either 1-on-1 or through one of my online group trainings.

Which brings me back to the main story - why I spent $1,000 when I could've (maybe) gotten the same info from a $20 book.

Here's what I mean...

A few weeks ago, I signed up for Amy Porterfield's Facebook Profits Lab. It is an amazing program - and no, I'm not an affiliate and there's no link and I don't want you to sign up for anything. The program has two levels - $397 for the basic course and $997 for the VIP level where you get access to Amy and her team and get some very cool bonus materials.

Here are 6 reasons I invested with Amy and spent $980 more than I "had" to...

Social media and digital marketing (Facebook especially) changes by the week. Any book is going to be instantly outdated upon publication.

I loved the way Amy ran the (huge) marketing campaign to fill her course. She won me over not only with what she was teaching, but what she was DOING to get me to buy.

The free content Amy provided during her launch was nothing short of top-notch. Detailed, specific, actionable, and valuable. I could've just consumed the free content and learned a ton. Ironically, that's why I bought. Don't lose the impact of this point. If your free content is a "Happy Meal" in itself, it makes people MORE hungry (not less) for your full 7-course gourmet experience.

Part of what Amy offered (and part of what I've always offered in every one of my group training programs) is to not only TEACH you, but to SHOW you what she does in her own business with the exact same strategies you're learning. This "preach only what you practice" approach is sadly rare in our business. Most gurus only scratch the surface and almost never reveal what's REALLY working for them right now, in today's market, with today's technology, tools, and platforms. Amy shows you. I show you. That's worth gold right there.

Community is huge. Part of Amy's program (and again, this is something I've done since 2008) is to connect her students with each other. This provides a learning environment that is so much more motivating, actionable, and collaborative. Back in the day, I used Yahoo Groups to provide a private forum and "online hangout" for the participants in my programs. Then in later years, moved to Linkedin, and most recently started using Private Facebook Groups which works best of all. Part of why I invested at the $997 VIP level with Amy was her "VIP Only" Facebook group with personal access to Amy and her team plus all the other VIP level members. The idea is to connect your community so they can ask and answer questions of each other, share success stories, ask for feedback, get advice, insights and recommendations from you and from others, and build a sense of shared momentum. In one of my group programs earlier this year, we had over 100 pieces of completed work posted in our collaborative forum. Seeing other's progress motivated people and it just built up to a point where everyone was crushing it. Yay!! That's the point, right?

You need to sell the way you buy. I could not, in good conscience, ask YOU to invest with me if I refuse to invest in myself. This one is multi-layered - but just think about it... Imagine if I asked you to spend money to learn from me BUT I don't spend money to learn from others. What a huge psychological disconnect that would be! Of course I believe in my heart and soul that you should invest with me to learn something valuable, profitable, and immediately actionable like speaker marketing, book marketing, or how to run profitable coaching programs. Why? Because I invest in myself all the time to learn more about new things that are outside of my expertise like podcasting, Facebook advertising, and joint venture marketing. If you don't buy because you believe - you'll never be able to sell because you believe... and that's where your sales success DNA (core beliefs, mindset, skill set) lives!!

So put down that $20 book. How could you multiply your investment AND magnify your results?

Download this FREE Do It! Marketing Manifesto, where you'll discover the four levels of marketing and how to use each.

Here's where you'll get some of the smartest marketing advice from top marketers and entrepreneurs who share their best success secrets via in-depth interrogation-style interviews with yours truly...

My special guest this week...

Corey Perlman - Social Media Marketing ExpertCorey Perlman knows what it takes for busy entrepreneurs like you to dominate social media the RIGHT way. That means - strategically, smartly, and without wasting hundreds of hours on trivial nonsense. Corey's new book, Social Media Overload, is specifically designed to show you how to generate maximum social media impact in minimum time.

Share this with your pals, link to it from your own blog, tell 17 friends, go nuts and have fun!

Please leave a comment below with your own experiences or questions about social media marketing, social media overload or anything else we talked about (including how to dominate social media without letting it dominate YOU!!)

Here's where you'll get some of the smartest marketing advice from top marketers and entrepreneurs who share their best success secrets via in-depth interrogation-style interviews with yours truly...

My special guest this week...

Alyson Lex - Copywriting and Direct Marketing ExpertIf you’re ready to make your marketing work for you, consistently, over and over and over again… then Alyson is your go-to person. She's a master of developing sales funnels that work. From architecture to products to copy that converts, Alyson takes you from “I don’t know” or “This doesn’t work” or even “I’m not having any FUN with this!” to “My Marketing ROCKS!” Listen in as we talk about strategy, marketing, copywriting, and sharpening your message and your methods...

Share this with your pals, link to it from your own blog, tell 17 friends, go nuts and have fun!

Please leave a comment below with your own experiences or questions about direct marketing, copywriting or anything else we talked about (including having a really cool name that matches your profession perfectly!!)

Did you see that spam email from the toner cartridge company? Did you catch the pitch from the SEO firm that filled out your website's "contact us" form? Did you respond to that great deal on vacation cruises? NO?

OK now pop over to your paper mail pile on your desk. Did you check out the latest "triple play" offer from Comcast (or whatever hellacious Cable Satan runs in your neck of the woods)? How about that compelling cell phone offer from Verizon? The Wall Street Journal subscription offer under that postcard? Or how about that postcard - you know, the one from the home heating oil company? NO?

When's the last time you gave your credit card number over to a cold caller who interrupted your family dinner? NEVER??

And hello? YOU don't BUY this way. What in the world makes you think your prospects DO?

Look once more at the ad above - and answer one simple question:

Question #1: What VALUE have I ADDED to my prospect's world in order to EARN the RIGHT to INVITE them to a conversation and OFFER my solutions to their urgent, pervasive, expensive problems?

Insight #2 Referrals are great - but they are neither deaf, dumb, nor blind

Next, you'll say that you don't NEED "expert marketing" because 99% of your business is repeat and referral business and it's always been that way and you don't see how this "newfangled marketing" is going to move the needle in closing more sales.

Do you seriously think that referrals don't check you out online before picking up the phone?

What messages are you sending to your valued referrals with...

a. Your outdated website (articles from 2008 are outdated, friends. And from 2003 even more so. And design aesthetic from 1997 most of all.)

b. Your sporadically updated blog that you leave dormant for 2 (or 4 or 6) months at a clip.

c. Your abandoned Twitter account you set up because someone said "you had to" and that now has 37 followers while your competitors have 3,000 (or a whole lot more.)

d. Your sketchy, bare bones LinkedIn profile that has 300 connections but only 2 recommendations (From 2005. From people with the same last name as you.)

Make no mistake: Getting repeat and referral business is great. But don't kid yourself that this absolves you from having a top-notch web presence, social media platform, and body of knowledge that is ultra-current, super-relevant, and obviously abundant.

In fact, you are leaving yourself open for EMBARRASSMENT if your advocates hear back from their referrals and find themselves in the awkward position of having to DEFEND you to them because your web presence has fallen behind and now casts your professional expertise into doubt.

Insight #3 Expert Marketing is a 4-layer enchilada (aka You don't get to eat the delicious golden-brown cheese without first layering on the meat!!)

The first layer - at the core of the matter - is your Reputation. Your work. Your track record. If you stop there, you'll have a VERY hard time attracting NEW leads and prospects to your doorstep. "My work should speak for itself" is what a lot of very smart people say - smart people who have a hard time making their mortgage payments.

The second layer is Amplification. Ways to make your "expert signal" stronger. Enter social media marketing, niche PR, article marketing, blogging, keyword research and search engine optimization. This is the key to spreading your ideas and broadcasting your expertise.

The third layer is Leverage. This is where you begin to capitalize on your "expert marketing" assets such as articles, blogs, videos, podcasts, interviews, white papers, special reports, book excerpts, and other value-first marketing tools. You can now reach out to high-probability prospects both individually (on LinkedIn for example) and collectively (on your blog for example). This is where your job becomes putting the right bait on the right hooks in the right lakes to catch the right fish.

The fourth layer is Gravity. Just like Jim Collins talks about the "flywheel" concept in Good to Great (it takes a long time to get it spinning but then is very hard to stop because of the power of momentum) - this is where you start to see payoffs. More leads, better prospects, bigger opportunities, more conversations, higher profile alliances, more invitations to speak, publish, guest post, contribute, teach, and (drum roll please...) more invitations to do great work at premium fees for great clients who NOW know you, like you, and trust you enough to hand over 5- and 6-figure checks because their level of confidence in your expertise is pretty damn close to 100%.

Question #3: Do you want to make more sales to strangers? (Good luck with that). Or do you really want more people to recognize, respect, and request YOU by name when they have a need, project, or problem that they instantly see has "your name written all over it"? If that's your goal, then expert marketing is for you.

Re-read the McGraw-Hill ad above and let's do a 21st century spin on it together...

I don't know who you are.

I don't read your blog.

I don't subscribe to your newsletter.

I don't see your name in my industry's publications.

I don't hear my peers spreading your ideas.

I don't come across your content in Google searches.

I don't connect your solutions to my problems.

I don't feel the gravity of your credibility or credentials.

I don't have any tangible way to gauge your expertise or experience.

Now -- what was it you wanted to sell me?

So here's the ultimate (and most important) question for YOU:

How can you realistically expect to SELL anything by NOT setting the necessary pre-conditions for ANY sale with Expert Marketing?

The answer is as simple as it is obvious: you can't. Just like you can't drive your car from Denver to Sheboygan just by filling up your gas tank. You need to get behind the wheel, plan your route, use your GPS, add more fuel along the way (and probably some beef jerky and Sno-Balls and root beer) AND put in the hours and the miles to get you to your destination.

There are four things that you need to focus on in your professional service marketing, four levels if you will.

The four levels are strategy, tactics, initiatives and action steps.

When you go to a conference, when you ask your mastermind group for help, even when you start searching the web for answers and resources to grow your business, the number one source of overwhelm is when we've heard a whole bunch of strategies, a whole bunch of tactics, a whole bunch of initiatives, a whole bunch of actions steps and we don’t know the difference.

We can't do them all.

We can't even prioritize or figure out how to start to think about them.

We can't even distinguish which is what and why and how it might work for us.

So let's unpack this for your business...

Let's talk about level one, strategy.

A strategy is a big picture area of your business.

It could be a marketing-focused strategy. It could be a sales-focused strategy. It could be a financial strategy.

Let’s say you come across someone who tells you Twitter is an amazing marketing platform and you’re really missing out if your business is not on Twitter.

He's using it and it fits his business beautifully, of course and you respect this person and you admire their successful business. And now you’re thinking, "Oh man, it's all about Twitter Twitter, Twitter. This guy built his business on Twitter, so I can probably build my business on Twitter."

Well, all right, let's back that up and analyze that as far as the four levels of marketing.

Internet marketing is the strategy. Internet marketing is the big umbrella over Twitter. So you ask yourself, to what extent am I going to use an Internet marketing strategy in the sales and marketing and business development aspect of my business?

Internet marketing is the strategy.

The set of tactics under that would be social media. There's a lot going on via the internet, folks, that's not social media.

For example, search engine optimization, your website, the structure of your web presence, blogging, email marketing, dozens of internet marketing strategies. Social media happens to be one bucket under that, so social media is the tactic.

An initiative would be "I'm going to start using Twitter." This is level three now.

I'm going to start using Twitter. I'm going to start understanding it. I might read a book. I might go to some websites, I’m going to grab a copy of Twitter 101 or Using Twitter for business, all those fabulous resources that are out there for free. I'm going to become educated on that -- on that initiative.

Those are action steps. And the action step can also go on your calendar.

So this approach really takes it down to "What am I doing today?"

What's on my priority to-do list today? Not what's on my to-do list because your to-do list could be 50 things, but what are my top three most important things that I need to do based on the strategies I've selected, based on the tactics that I’ve chosen, based on the initiatives that I've designed, what are the action steps to put on my calendar and get it done?

So let’s follow this through with a complete example -- let's say I'm in the insurance business. (I'm not but let's say YOU are!)

You're selling into the insurance marketplace, insurance companies and insurance agents, general agents, insurance associations, insurance publications, and you’re looking to become a dominant resource in that world.

Does that fit into an initiative? Yes. The initiative is aggressively grow my Twitter following targeted to the insurance industry.

Does that fall in to a tactic? Yes, it does. It falls in to the social media tactic or set of tactics.

Does that fall under a strategy that I decided to use? Yes, it falls in to my internet marketing strategy.

So right there, just unpacking those four levels, you've got some "A-ha" moments, some insights you can use to start to filter and sort all of your old ideas, old notes, all of those conference sessions that you may have gone to, all of those tactics and tools and light bulb moments, all those nuggets and sound bites that you may have swirling around in your head or on your “someday, maybe list.”

If you start to sort them in to these four levels; strategy, tactic, initiative and action step – you’ll get a much clearer blueprint for ALL your marketing going forward this month, next month and next year!

It all started with this passionate rant...

If I see one more idiot posting about "millionaire speaker" bootcamps or info-marketing mega-courses, or moronic pitches to "work less and make more" I'm going to pop an artery because these are complete B.S.!!

You want the secret to work less and make more?

Great - here it is in three words: DELIVER. MASSIVE. VALUE.

Maybe four more words would help: WORK. YOUR. BUTT. OFF.

In addition to my main speaking and consulting work, I've made a very nice secondary income since 2008 in group coaching programs.

HOWEVER - let's not sugar-coat things, either: they are a tremendous amount of WORK. Preparation, planning, building the modules, marketing the programs, filling the classes.

And no, these aren't the $97 per month automated type of programs with canned emails and videos.

These are personally led by me in real time with real interaction and they carry a premium price tag and they are extremely well-received.

I can say with pinpoint accuracy that between 2008 and 2010, I ran...

The Speaker Marketing Toolkit program 12 times since 2008 ($144,000)

The Product Development Tookit 3 times ($28,800)

The Speaker Profit Blueprint 3 times ($23,100)

The 30-day SpeakerLiftoff program 5 times ($37,375)

The Do It! Marketing Accelerator 8 people at $277/month ($6,648)

The inaugural 2014 Book Marketing Workshop had 12 people at $777 ($9,324)

So if you truly want to leverage your time, talent, content, expertise, and experience...

You must learn to create, market and sell group coaching programs.

They're a great supplement and complement to your main business as a speaker, author, coach, consultant, or independent professional.

There is no magic bullet. There is no "millionaire fairy"... Get to work and you'll get these results.

p.s. Ready to go behind the scenes and do this for your own business? If so, then this might be exactly what you've been looking for.